Cindy McCainCall for Favorite Love Poems–Valentine’s Day Survival Guide Pt. 4
Yesterday I posted 3 of my favorite love poems. I invited guys to use them or write their own for their girls for Valentine’s Day. My friend, Jesse, posted a comment that included one of his favorite poems. I like it so much I want to share it with you here. Please send your favorite love poem (penned by you or by a favorite author) by way of a Comment on this blog. If you include your permission, I may post it here. Thanks again, Jesse, for this poem by Frank O’Hara!
Having a Coke with You
is even more fun than going to San Sebastain, Irun, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluoresent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasently definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the “Polish Rider” occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the “Nude Descending a Staircase” or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michaelangleo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it
And another added by me from e. e. cummings:
since feeling is first
since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;
wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
–the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says
we are for eachother: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph
And death i think is no parenthesis
Cindy McCain 
Lindsay H.
Author: Danyka A. Hoover
A gentle brush of his fingers,
Sending shivers down my spine.
In the love I see in his eyes,
Is a love that equals mine.
He greets me with a smile,
And leaves me with a kiss.
If he were to ever leave me,
I couldn’t imagine what I’d miss.
Maybe it’s his touch,
Or the way he makes me feel.
But whatever it is,
I’m head over heels.
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Robert Browning
A Woman’s Last Word
Let’s contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
—Only sleep!
What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!
See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!
What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent’s tooth is
Shun the tree—
Where the apple reddens
Never pry—
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.
Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!
Teach me, only teach, Love
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought—
Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.
That shall be to-morrow
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:
–Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.
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i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
ee cummings
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She walks in beauty
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade more, one ray less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o’er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Lord Byron
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One of my favorite verses that says it all:
“I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me.”
Song of Solomon 6:10
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“At Last” Elizabeth Akers Allen
At last, when all the summer shine
That warmed life’s early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine
And hold them close—at last—at last!
Not oft the robin comes to build
Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,—
But you, dear heart, you love me now.
Though there are shadows on my brow
And furrows on my cheek, in truth,—
The marks where Time’s remorseless plough
Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,—
Though fled is every girlish grace
Might win or hold a lover’s vow,
Despite my sad and faded face,
And darkened heart, you love me now!
I count no more my wasted tears;
They left no echo of their fall;
I mourn no more my lonesome years;
This blessed hour atones for all.
I fear not all that Time or Fate
May bring to burden heart or brow,—
Strong in the love that came so late,
Our souls shall keep it always now!
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ANNABELLE LEE
Author: Edgar Allan Poe
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love –
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulcher
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me
Yes! that was the reason
(as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
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Life in a Love
Famous love poems by Robert Browning
Escape me?
Never—
Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear:
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed.
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!
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I think it goes like this
Jenny Kissed Me
by James Henry Leigh Hunt
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.
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To A Stranger
by Walt Whitman
Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking
(It comes to me as a dream)
I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,
You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
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In Love
The day you appeared I lost my heart
To you, to love.
And from that day I cannot part
From you, from love.
You hold me tight
To you, to love.
In my thoughts all day and night
Of you, of love.
I offer all that I have to give
To you, to love.
And all my days I want to live
With you, in love.
– Amanda Marie Burson –
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All I Have to Give
Author: Cara G. Stanfield
You’re the first thing I think of
Each morning when I rise.
You’re the last thing I think of
Each night when I close my eyes.
You’re in each thought I have
And every breath I take.
My feelings are growing stronger
With every move I make.
I want to prove I love you
But that’s the hardest part.
So, I’m giving all I have to give
To you… I give my heart
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Unlicensed Love
On a summer’s day long, long ago
I fell in love and I’ll never know
Just what it was that made me feel
So drawn to her, what the appeal
That set my pulses so to race
When e’er I gazed upon that face
Of one who was scarce but a child
Yet even then could drive me wild
I’ll never know the how’s and why’s
I lost my heart to Hazel Eyes
But when I got that long sought kiss
I knew I’d found my Perfect Miss
My elfin girl from down the lane
And I’ll never let her go again
For how could I describe our love?
Romantic love, all hearts and flowers
No way to count the days and hours
Spent in self-indulgent wishes
And thoughts of long awaited kisses
Of sweet embraces, tender sighs
And gazing into love filled eyes
Oh yes, it is that kind of love
Or, is it yet the love of passion
The ecstasy that knows no ration
That shuddering nerve-tingling feeling
The climax with your senses reeling
The wondrous joy when you discover
That sweet surrender to your lover
Oh yes, it’s that kind of love too.
Or even yet a love that grows
One that cares and one that knows
That sees beyond the outer skin
Into the person deep within
That loves the spirit and the soul
The inner self that makes the whole
Built on trust and empathy
A love you know was meant to be
The love we share is all these things
A love that has no need of rings
A love you never need to doubt
A love I cannot live without
A love to last us all our days
A love I’ll share with you always
– Jim Sharman –
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Love at First Sight
Virgo
Is there such a thing as love at first sight?
That’s the question I used to ask
Until I laid eyes on you.
How is it possible to feel so much for a
stranger, a passerby?
Love has no limits, no color, no time.
That’s when I realized I had fallen in love –
Love at first sight.
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Gray Eyes
It was April when you came
The first time to me,
And my first look in your eyes
Was like my first look at the sea.
We have been together
Four Aprils now
Watching for the green
On the swaying willow bough;
Yet whenever I turn
To your gray eyes over me,
It is as though I looked
For the first time at the sea.
Sara Teasdale
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Reluctance by Robert Frost
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
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Linda Was Quite Lonely
Linda was quite lonely
On the day of love.
No one cared how well she fared
Or which way she might move.
No one thought her lovely
Or dreamed of her caress,
Or so she thought until she bought
A sexy dark red dress.
That dress had seemed a failure,
Though she had lost some weight.
Some men stared, but no one cared
Enough to make a date.
Her calendar was empty,
As empty as her heart,
When in this hell she heard the bell
And jumped up with a start.
Could it be? Oh, could it?
Here was her salvation!
To her joy a delivery boy
Was holding a carnation.
“Carnation-Gram,” the boy said,
And handed her the box.
Who was it from? Perhaps someone
Who thought she was a fox.
All Linda’s sadness vanished
As if it never were.
That little flower had the power
To set her heart astir!
And so when Johnny called her
In a little while,
She was primed in heart and mind
To greet him with a smile.
So please remember Linda
When starting a relation:
Her mood reversed when she got first
A single, cheap carnation!
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i carry your heart with me
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
ee cummings
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Kelly D.-english love poem.
By: Robert Browning
“Two in the Campagna”
I wonder do you feel today
As I have felt since, hand in hand,
We sat down on the grass, to stray
In spirit better through the land,
This morn of Rome and May?
For me, I touched a thought, I know,
Has tantalized me many times,
(Like turns of thread the spiders throw
Mocking across our path) for rhymes
To catch at and let go.
Help me to hold it! First it left
The yellowing fennel, run to seed
There, branching from the brickwork’s cleft,
Some old tomb’s ruin: yonder weed
Took up the floating weft,
Where one small orange cup amassed
Five beetles—blind and green they grope
Among the honey-meal: and last,
Everywhere on the grassy slope
I traced it. Hold it fast!
The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
An everlasting wash of air—
Rome’s ghost since her decease.
Such life here, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting nature have her way
While heaven looks from its towers!
How say you? Let us, O my dove,
Let us be unashamed of soul,
As earth lies bare to heaven above!
How is it under our control
To love or not to love?
I would that you were all to me,
You that are just so much, no more.
Nor yours nor mine, nor slave nor free!
Where does the fault lie? What the core
O’ the wound, since wound must be?
I would I could adopt your will,
See with your eyes, and set my heart
Beating by yours, and drink my fill
At your soul’s springs—your part my part
In life, for good and ill.
No. I yearn upward, touch you close,
Then stand away. I kiss your cheek,
Catch your soul’s warmth—I pluck the rose
And love it more than tongue can speak—
Then the good minute goes.
Already how am I so far
Out of that minute? Must I go
Still like the thistle-ball, no bar,
Onward, whenever light winds blow,
Fixed by no friendly star?
Just when I seemed about to learn!
Where is the thread now? Off again!
The old trick! Only I discern—
Infinite passion, and the pain
Of finite hearts that yearn.
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LOVE IS ENOUGH
Love is enough: though the world be a-waning,
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
Though the skies be too dark for dim eyes to discover
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter:
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.
William Morris (1834-96)
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A stranger you were once.
Then, with a gentle look you took my hand.
As our lives engaged,
you lit my life and I held both your hands.
Now that decades have passed,
ours souls have indeed become one.
How fortunate we are
that we have found the love so true
that everyone dreams about.
– Laura Veronica Merodio –
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Katie
Sonnets from the Portuguese XIV
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
‘I love her for her smile–her look–her way
Of speaking gently,–for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’–
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,–and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry,–
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby !
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Chamomile Tea by Katherine Mansfield
Outside the sky is light with stars;
There’s a hollow roaring from the sea.
And, alas! for the little almond flowers,
The wind is shaking the almond tree.
How little I thought, a year ago,
In the horrible cottage upon the Lee
That he and I should be sitting so
And sipping a cup of chamomile tea.
Light as feathers the witches fly,
The horn of the moon is plain to see;
By a firefly under a jonquil flower
A goblin toasts a bumble-bee.
We might be fifty, we might be five,
So snug, so compact, so wise are we!
Under the kitchen-table leg
My knee is pressing against his knee.
Our shutters are shut, the fire is low,
The tap is dripping peacefully;
The saucepan shadows on the wall
Are black and round and plain to see.
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She Walks in Beauty Like the Night
by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow’d to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair’d the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o’er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o’er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
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Tony L.
Emily Dickinson- It’s All I Have to Bring Today
It’s all I have to bring today–
This, and my heart beside–
This, and my heart, and all the fields–
And all the meadows wide–
Be sure you count–should I forget
Some one the sum could tell–
This, and my heart, and all the Bees
Which in the Clover dwell.
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i carry your heart with me
by e.e. cummings
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
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Love Poem
“A Red, Red Rose”
By: Robert Burns
O, my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June.
O, my Luve’s like a melodie
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.
As fair as thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:
I will love thess till, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run:
And fare thee well, my only luve!
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho’ it ware ten thousand mile.
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The Sun Never Says
Even after all this time
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe Me.”
Look what happens with
A love like that,
It lights the Whole Sky.
– Hafiz, from The Gift
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My First Love
by Tazita
I never thought I’d ever learn to Love,
the way simple lovers do.
I always believed it was impossible.
Yet I found myself so in love with you.
Now I know exactly what love truly is
and you are my reason why;
You convinced me to let you in my soul . . .
And you promised you would never lie.
I have learned to cherish and trust you,
In a way I never had before.
And if anything were ever to happen,
My Love,
I think I would only love you more.
I fought my feelings along the way,
but in the end it remains still true –
I have finally found My love in life.
(Just like you always knew. )
If you told me once, you told me twice,
Just how beautiful love could be.
Yet I never realized until now,
that you were speaking of you and me.
You have brought me such happiness,
it takes all my sadness away.
And with my endless loyalty
I will so lovingly repay.
You are my love in life.
This I will never forget.
You are the Love of my Life,
This I knew from the moment we met.
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A Promise To My Love
by Karin Schaefer
I believe that none could love you
quite as deeply as I do;
And yet I often fail to show
the depth of it to you.
I vow to do the little things,
to show you every day;
But one thing or another
seems to get into the way.
I pledge to be more open,
to have courage and be strong;
But some how fear takes over
and then everything goes wrong.
I dream of perfect love for us,
and hope that it will be;
And yet I end up giving you
a less than perfect me.
I want to be much more for you,
be everything you need.
I hope and seek, beg and pray
“Change me Lord! “, I plead.
You are the only one I want.
It is for you I yearn.
I guess, my love, there’s still so much
that I have yet to learn.
I cannot give perfection,
but this I promise I will do –
I will spend my life time learning
how to give my love to you.
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